Essex stint marks a new chapter in Simon Harmer's career

Simon Harmer couldn't have made a better start to life with Essex. The South African offspinner's last two County Championship matches, against Warwickshire and Middlesex, brought him a remarkable 28 wickets. Harmer leads the Championship wicket-takers' charts with 47 wickets in all at 21.85, helping Essex rise to the top of the table, and has added another 17 wickets in limited-overs cricket.

Has it gone better than even he might have hoped? "Yes, definitely," he tells Cricbuzz. "Considering where we are in the table and what we've done so far this season, to contribute to that and what it means to the guys in the dressing room as well as personally is great. It's my first season of county cricket and I want to make an impact, make a name for myself. After the last two games, to come away with 28 wickets, it has been incredibly special."

Essex's win against Middlesex, last year's champions, earlier this month was achieved with just eight balls remaining in the match. It was high drama, only added to, by the floodlights and darkening skies of the day/night match at Chelmsford. Harmer bowled 46.4 overs in the final innings on a pitch which was turning sharply and took 9-95 in all (Dan Lawrence robbed him of a ten-fer). His dismissal of Steven Finn, plumb LBW, sparked wild celebrations at close to 10 PM at night.

"As a spinner, it's always nice to be finishing a game like that," Harmer says. "I've watched a few games like that and been on the receiving end of a finish like that before so it was a good moment to be in that position. It's not something that comes around every day and it's not something you can script. It was nice to be the man with the ball in hand at the end of the game."

It was perhaps the dismissal of Paul Stirling just before Tea on that final day which spoke most about Harmer's character and skill than anything. Middlesex, through Stirling and Nick Compton, were looking well set to secure a draw at 204 for 3 with just over one session to go. Essex's frustration was compounded by a couple of regulation catches dropped at short leg off Harmer. He was not be denied a third time as Stirling was caught by Ravi Bopara at backward square leg.

It was a lovely piece of bowling, flighted to perfection, spitting and bouncing from a length that the batsman could neither get right to the pitch of or go back to. Harmer's loud exultation of "Come on!" at finally getting his man belied his frustration but also his aggression. In that moment, he showed the type of competitor that Essex have shrewdly signed. His ability to dismiss good players - Kumar Sangakkara, Dean Elgar and Jonathan Trott are victims this season - was also evident.

"We had dropped him [Stirling] a couple of times before that which was incredibly frustrating because it was the type of wicket when the door was open, you needed to capitalise," Harmer recalls. "When we finally got that wicket, there was a lot of frustration. Knowing we had cracked open an end, we felt we had a chance." That they did. Essex took six for 58 in the final session and four wickets in the last six overs to wrap up a victory which has put them 29 points clear at the top of the Championship with six games left to play.

Not many would have predicted that at the start of the season. Essex had been promoted from Division Two last year and their first target was to keep their place in the top flight given they had not been there since 2009. That season, they were relegated. But with a group of highly talented homegrown players - England's new Test match number three Tom Westley included - and some shrewd recruitment they have surpassed perhaps even their own expectations.

Despite never having been to Essex before, Harmer is enjoying life in Chelmsford - "a nice little city and it offers everything you need," he says - and life at the club generally. "It's a really good bunch of guys, they all enjoy one another's company. They enjoy their success off the field which is good, there has got to be a balance." Essex themselves have been hugely impressed with the offspinner's impact on and off the field. He has also found favour with the club's supporters, many of whom are fully converted members of 'The Harmy Army'.

Harmer's signing was important for Essex given their lack of a top class spinner since the departure of Danish Kaneria in 2009. Although a few have been tried, including Monty Panesar, no frontline spinner has been able to sustain a permanent spot in the team since and it has held their cricket back. Although not particularly well known in England before this season, the signing of Harmer, a Test-class slow bowler, was a statement of intent by Essex.

He was brought in to both win games on wearing pitches towards the back end of games, and to provide control on the better surfaces found in Division One. To help him with the former task, the surfaces at Chelmsford have generally been left drier this season but Harmer has not been burdened with too much pressure by the county's management. "I didn't feel there was a hell of a lot of expectation to be honest," he says.

"I've had a lot of belief instilled in me by [captain] Ryan ten Doeschate and [coach] Chris Silverwood. That's been the most comforting thing in knowing that you're backed and knowing that the coach and the captain believe in you. It's definitely had something to do with putting in the performances I have knowing that I have got the backing in the changing room and on the field."

Has his game improved even in the short time he has been with Essex? "The way things have gone this season, especially in the four-day stuff and the way that I have needed to bowl, I definitely think my game has got better, being consistent for long periods of time and taking wickets. I'm definitely a better player than I was in January or February this year."

He has bowled 376.1 overs in four-day cricket this summer, more than anyone else in Division One, although Harmer is unsure whether that is the sole reason for his improvement. "I don't know," he says. "The reason I have bowled as many overs as I have is purely to hold an end. A lot of factors have helped. The way we have been batting and having a lot of runs on the board, for example. Bowling lots of overs, you're always then in the mix to take wickets."

Harmer looks to be the ideal Kolpak signing. He is a high quality cricketer - he can bat, saving a game against Middlesex earlier in the season at Lord's, and is an excellent point fieldsman too - who is committed and passionate about doing well for his county. There can be little argument that his presence improves the standard of England's domestic game which, incidentally, he thinks is better than South Africa's first-class competition.

He admits, though, it was a tough decision to leave his homeland in the first place. "Looking back now, it seems like it was relatively easy but at the time, to pigeonhole my international career and understand that was over, the uncertainty that came with the one-year deal at Essex, there was a lot of uneasiness and anxiousness," Harmer says. "It's not a decision that I wanted to make but I had to do what I felt was best for me."

Such is the warmth of feeling between Harmer and the county, he has already extended his original one-year deal by a further two seasons. "I get along really well with everybody and I was very happy to sign the extension," he says. "Having a one-year deal, not knowing if it would go past that, there was a lot of anxiety and maybe insecurity about where my cricket career was going. Now, after having extended for another two years, I'm very content with the decision I made. It's been a really good fit [at Essex] so far."

Harmer's Test career started promisingly with 20 wickets at 29.40 from five matches but he surprisingly fell out of favour quickly. His last match was in 2015, and it is hard to argue if Dane Piedt and Keshav Maharaj are better than Harmer in his current form, who have leapfrogged him in the international pecking order. Both are players of colour which means for Harmer to get his position back under the quota system, an incumbent white player would have to be dropped and replaced by a non-white cricketer.

Notwithstanding the merits of such a system for the integration of non-white players in South African cricket, that is the difficulty the likes of Harmer and others face. Frustrated, many have chosen lucrative county contracts instead of biding their time at home, hoping for an international call-up that may never come because of a system they regard as unfair.

It is, of course, a nuanced and delicate issue. Whatever your view on the quota system and the Kolpak situation, one thing is certain regarding Harmer: South Africa's loss is very much Essex's gain.